Last weekend I attended Lean Startup Machine as a mentor and judge. It was by far one of the most inspiring events in a long time. The key reason ? It opened my eyes to a public secret about failure & success among startups: that entrepreneurs push their solutions without validating their customer’s problems first. Equally important: LSM helps you do this in 3 days. First you validate your customers.

Recently I spoke at the annual conference for the Creative Industry, formerly known as the Print & Graphics conference. At first glance, you might expect that our digital times present incredible challenges for this sector. But the opposite is true. If you start to look there are incredible opportunities for buzzable services, applications and business models. Our digital world – as in many industries – actually creates tons of hybrid.

Yesterday I was one of the judges at the semi-finals of the Philips Innovation Award. It was a fantastic event with enormous amounts of entrepreneurial energy. But of course the big question is: how buzzable were the propositions ? In a nutshell my observations on 8 inspiring new business ideas. If you want to connect with these entrepreneurs, let me know and I’ll hook you up. If you have ideas.

Recently, I spoke at the annual conference for Mediators. For those not in the know: mediators embrace the notion of settling conflicts by getting everyone to agree on the outcome in a mediated process. Instead of two parties both trying to get the meanest lawyer who will leave the opposing party stripped bare to the bone on the floor. In our ‘dog eat dog’ world, mediation is still a pretty.